Changing Tides
by SoWhelmed
Summary: Percy, Grover and Annabeth run into Max and her gang, as you can guess i doesn't go very well


**telling ya now, there was no good place to stop, so it's pretty long. And i takes place place before Nevermore (or Dylan for that matter) and before Lukes betryal:D**

**enjoy and review, not really inspired with this on any more, but if enough people like it, I'll keep going! promise!**

Max's POV

"Max, where we going?"  
"New York."  
"Why?" Angel stared at me expectantly with her bright blue eyes.  
"Because."  
"But why?"  
"Just because."  
"But wh-"  
"Angel, let it go." Fang glanced at her in the rearview mirror of the car we, ah, obtained.  
I sighed in relief. Angel had been bugging me ever since we left this morning. It isn't my fault that the monsters attacked us. It isn't my fault that I had a voice telling me New York is the place to be. And it's not my fault I have this weird feeling we shouldn't fly. So here we are, in this stupid van my mom found us, driving illegally, to New York City. And believe me, sitting in a van all day with six, basically ADHD kids, all claustrophobic, is NOT fun. It might as well be considered torture. We were all restless to fly.

Percy's POV

"Percy, I don't like this." Annabeth whispered. She was just as jittery about this as I was. Her New York Yankees cap was being strangled by her restless hands, while her eyes darted over the huge crowds of passing people.  
"Would you relax?" I said even though the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end.  
"Guys, this does not smell good AT ALL." Normally, that would've sounded weird. But coming from a Satyr, it made me even more nervous.  
"I'm sure it's nothing Grover, just the subway clogging your nose." Even as I said it I pulled my ball point pen from my pocket and started twisting the cap.  
Grover shuddered, "You're probably right."  
I didn't really understand what was going on. I was just trying to spend a day with my friends, and it wasn't ending up to be any fun at all. Sure we laughed a bit, but something was off. It'd be better if the monsters would just come right out and face us. But they weren't there, well they were. But we didn't know where. That's part of the problem. We had no idea what we were up against. New York had never seemed scarier.

Max's POV

"Max, I'm hungry."  
"Iggy, we just ate!"  
Fang snickered in the seat next to me. "Max, That was like, six hours ago. Time passes while you sleep you know."  
I stuck my tongue out at him and started scanning the road for a place to eat. Highway. All around.  
Lovely.  
I scowled and Fang laughed. I felt like punching him in his stupid face. I busied myself by seeing what everyone was up to. Nudge was telling Gazzy all about this new lip stick she found. She even offered to let him use it. Which is really, really rare. Extra stress on really. He pushed it away with an "Ew, gross!" And a highly exaggerated face with his eyes all weird and his tongue sticking out. Angel was holding Celist, for once being good and not invading peoples minds. She glared at me. Oops. Iggy was building a bomb. How he got all of those pieces into the van with out being caught was beyond me. At least I know he wouldn't make it explode on accident. I would feel better if Gazzy was helping though. Oh, yeah. Iggy's blind. And his partner in crime is nine years old.  
I looked back out the window to the New York sky line.  
"Next exit, Max. I hope you find what we're looking for."  
I sighed. "Me too."  
I had absolutely no idea what we were doing here.

Percy's POV

"Ok, Percy. I'm freaking out. It smells bad. Like, worse than underground bad."  
Now, that's bad. Grover is terrified of underground. He says it smells terrible. Like monsters everywhere. All the time. And worse than underground, that's bad.  
"Can we leave?"  
We were walking aimlessly around the zoo. I had no idea why we were here except that I felt like this is where I needed to be. Annabeth was staring sadly at an owl, like she wanted to free the whole zoo. Like that wouldn't attract any monsters to us. I grabbed her hand and pulled her away. I had that weird feeling we were being watched. It creeped me out. When you're a demigod and you get that feeling it usually means something smarter than the average monster wanted to kill you.

Max's POV

"Fang stop!" The van lurched to a sudden halt causing Nudge to scream out in surprise. The zoo. We had to go there. I don't know if it was my gut feeling, or the weird freaky dreams I was having, but we had to go in there. We parked the van and jumped out. Gazzy rolled his shoulders, looking like he was ready to open his wings. I put my hands on his shoulders.  
"No." He pouted, but thank goodness he listened. Fang payed for all of us. Mom had given us a ton of money for this unexpected trip. We stepped inside, and were instantly surrounded by huge crowds. Angel grabbed my hand and in my head I heard her say. "Max, there are evil thoughts in here. Watch out."  
I nodded squeezing her hand. The trapped birds made me shudder. Angel looked like she was about to cry from their sad thoughts. Seeing the birds was the worst. We felt their need for space and freedom. Open sky was the only way. I remembered our days stuck in dog cages. A shudder passed through my body. I could feel Fangs eyes boring into my head. These five kids around me were the only ones who would ever understand. I smiled sadly, "Let's move on." I turned to see a girl by an owl cage give one sad, longing last look toward the cage, before a guy pulled her away. I don't know what caused me to notice them. But they seemed on edge. Kinda like we were. But maybe even more so. Angel saw me looking at them, and did just as I thought she would.  
"Their thoughts are weird." She crinkled her nose. "The girls thinking something about how sad it is for her mothers symbol to be trapped in a cage. The black haired kid is thinking about monsters. And the other guy." She faltered. "He's not exactly human. Well actually none of them are."  
That sent fear coursing through me. "We need to move guys. Fast."  
Everyone got the message and started moving toward the exit. Everyone but Angel. She held her ground.  
"They're not evil." She looked up at me, innocent and helpless. "They're not evil." She said again.  
"Still, we need to move. Let's go look at Zebras, ok?"  
She stared at me quizzically, than nodded.  
From behind Iggy said sarcastically, "Oh, boy! I'd love to SEE them!"  
"I'm rolling my eyes, Iggy." The other five of us all yelled back to him. He smiled evilly and we all walked on. I just hope those weird kids didn't have any interest in Zebras.

Percy's POV

We left the birds, and moved to Zebras. Lame right? Not when you can read their thoughts. I love horses. They absolutely adored me. It can be really helpful at times. But that's not why I wanted to see them. I wanted to know if I needed to complain to the manager, plus they might know something. We got over to the bars of the cage, the zebras all ran over to me. Little kids around me oh-d and ah-d.  
"Master! Master!" The screamed excitedly in my head. At least they sounded happy.  
I thought back to them. "Hey guys. How's everything going here?"  
"Good, master, good!"  
"Good." They may not see monsters exactly, but they knew when something was going on.  
Someone bumped into me, I panicked and turned around fast. My pen was in my hand. I faced a teenage girl who looked at me like I was the stupidest thing since homework. I blushed but didn't move my pen. Grover looked really uneasy about this girl. So I was too.  
"Nice pen you have there." I had riptide pressed right underneath her chin and she slowly pushed it back.  
"It's not a pen." I said sternly and a lot braver than I felt.  
If she was a monster I would've known by now.  
"Yeah, whatever." She stared me down. Literally down. She was a lot taller than me. Suddenly I was aware of the others around her. Six of them all together. All glaring at me like they wanted to rip my throat out. I poked the girl on the shoulder.  
"Who are you?" I asked really confused. She wasn't a half-blood. But she wasn't a monster either. And she certainly was not a god.  
"I could ask you the same thing, stupid."  
Annabeth is the only one who gets to call me stupid.  
I had a sudden urge to uncap riptide and send her to Tartarus.  
"If you're playing with me tell me NOW." I said sternly.  
"What?! How would I be- what are you so scared of anyway?"  
"You're looking scared yourself!"  
"Maybe cause some stupid kid is trying to kill me with a pen!"  
"I'm not trying to kill you yet!"  
We were starting to attract a lot of attention. Annabeth put her hand on my shoulder, but the girl wasn't done.  
"Kill me yet?! Maybe I should snap your neck first!"  
Ah, the life of a half-blood. Grover and Annabeth both had to hold me back to keep me from bringing out my sword. But that didn't stop the tugging sensation in my gut. Water jumped out of the zebras water pit and spilled all over the girl. That's when we stared to run. The monsters would find us now, for sure.  
"Hey! How did- Hey come back!"  
They started to run after us. Really fast. We ran right out of the zoo and into the streets. Some how they caught up. I thought we were doing good until the guy wearing all black, who kinda reminded me of Nico, socked me in the face to hard for a normal kid. He knew how to fight. Unfortunately for him, so did we. I rolled with the punch, and came up with riptide uncapped. Somehow I knew Annabeth had her knife ready, and Grover had his pipes.  
They were going down. Demigod style.

Max's POV

As soon as I saw the knife I knew what bugged me. They were part of a gang.  
"No Max, that's not right."  
Angel stared at them. "Not a gang." Then I saw the pipes. Nope, not a gang. I looked at Fang. He shook his head. We had to fight this one, no leaving early. They didn't seem that scary. And it was six on three. Easy win for us. Then I saw Fang put his hands up. Sure, surrender. I never surrender. I crossed my arms. Fang glared at me. I sighed in disgust.  
"Can we talk this over, over coffee?" I could go for coffee.  
The three of them considered it silently. The curly haired kid seemed really happy about the idea of coffee. The girl rolled her eyes, and the guy said, "No intentional maiming." It sounded completely natural out of his mouth. And serious, like they used that a lot.  
Coffee, huh? This girl had style. Annabeth took us to the nearest coffee shop, and we all sat down in silence. Grover seemed taken with the youngest girl. Juniper would not be happy to know her competition was a little girl. The girl and her little gang decided they would pay, 'cause when I searched for money all I came up with were a few golden drachma. Annabeth glared at me when I set them on the table. I quickly shoved them back in my pocket. The oldest guy raised his eyebrow, the girl just looked confused. The others in her group seemed to be involved in other things. Like mapping possible escape routes.  
Finally, Annabeth blurted out, "What is wrong with you mortals?" The same time the little girl asked "Are you REALLY half goat?"  
Ok. Things just got really weird.

"Mortals, Annabeth, really?"  
"Half goat?"  
"Who are you guys?"  
"How did-"  
"But why-"  
"More expre-"  
"Ugh! Everybody SHUT UP!" I yelled everyone fell silent.  
"Can we introduce ourselves like civilized people before we all beat each other to death?!"  
This was getting insane.  
"Sure." The blond chick glared at me. "I'm Annabeth and this is Percy. Were demigods. And in five minutes, we're gonna kick your butts." Tough girl. I had a feeling she was pretty nasty to face in a fight.  
"And what's his deal?!"  
"That's Grover." The guy, Percy, was staring at his blond friend kinda bewildered.  
"He's a satyr." Whatever that means. Annabeth was still glaring daggers at me.  
"I'm Max."  
That simple introduction let the flock know not to lie to these people.  
"Fang."  
"Angel."  
"Nudge."  
"Iggy."  
"Gazzy."  
"Now that were all introduced let's-"  
"But what's the deal with you guys?"  
I hesitated. They trusted me with their secrets, so my turn.  
"Were human-avian." There, like they'll have any idea. Both guys looked at the girl. She sighed.  
"So you're bird people."  
She took it so calmly, I'm sure there was something wrong with this girls brain. The satyr sighed in relief, while the other demigod looked even more uneasy if that was possible.  
"So you gonna show us or what?"

What the heck was wrong with her? Annabeth was acting like an automaton that had blown a major brain fuse. She acted like she had something to prove. Oh right. Her fatal flaw.  
"Can we not, ah, PROVE anything here?" I stressed the word and Annabeth paled.  
"You have a better place in mind?"  
"Yes, actually. If you have a way of transportation."

Good thing we have a big van. We squeezed the three of them in and headed off for Long Island. Angel insisted that she sat by Grover. Apparently they had much to discus in the mind reading area. Nudge, Iggy, and Gazzy all climbed in the back seat. Fang was up front with Annabeth. Which meant I got stuck with the stupid kid that dumped water on my head, and almost stabbed Fang with a sword. Speaking of which...  
"Where'd your sword go?"  
"Oh." He pulled out his pen and uncapped it, causing it to spring into a three-foot sword.  
"It's not a pen." I agreed.  
"Nope."  
He tapped the point causing it to shrink back to a ball point pen.

We spent the rest of the drive warming up to the supposed "bird people". Tension was in the air. Like the calm before a storm. We were just barely holding it back. One wrong thing said, and everything would explode. More than likely, literally. I sat next to the Max girl, who kept rolling her shoulders nervously. I tried not to think about the fact she has wings.  
Grover eventually leaned forward and said, "What about the monsters? I swear I-"  
"I don't know Grover, do you still-?"  
"It's Hera!" Anabeth turned to face us, pulling against her seatbelt with everything she had. "And if I EVER see her ugly-"  
Grover cowered in his seat. Max looked at me like I'd just told her that Hephaestus was handsome.  
"Annabeth. Don't talk about the queen of the gods that way. She already hates you enough." I said trying to stay as calm as possible.  
"It's got to be her, Percy! You know it is!" She looks at me helplessly, trying to make me believe her.  
"Annabeth, not everything bad that happens is her fault."  
She turns around, "It's easier that way." I hear her mutter under her breath.  
"So where exactly are we going?" Max asks me. I hate how guarded her face is. It won't tell you anything about what she's thinking.  
"Camp Half Blood." I say  
"Meaning?"  
"You'll see."  
Minutes later Annabeth says, "Stop the car!" and the six bird kids stare off into the valley. I'm not sure what they see, but I don't think they can see ca-  
"Hey is that combat practice?" The guy named Fang asks with no emotion in his voice. What's wrong with these guys?  
"Yeah." I say looking quizzically at Annabeth. She looks back at me and shrugs.  
"Welcome to Camp Half-Blood." Annabeth opens her door and jumps out. The rest of us follow suit.


End file.
